Neoconservatives, Reaganites and other militarily assertive factions in the United States are sometimes accused of thinking it is always 1938 (Britain's appeasement of Hitler at Munich) -- that there is always a Hitler-like aggressor being appeased and about to drag the world into conflict. There is sometimes merit in that charge.
As, likewise, is there sometimes merit in the charge against isolationists and other doves that they always see 1914 (start of WWI) or 1964 (beginning of escalation of troops in Vietnam) -- the imminent and foolish entry into or escalation of a war that can't be won -- or even if victory were to be gained, it would be Pyrrhic.
Knowledge of history can be as much a snare as a guide -- if it is wrapped in a dogma that distorts the current facts to match the preferred historic lesson.
Our actions -- if any -- in the Iranian nuclear weapons development controversy cry out to be based on a careful assessment of facts -- and a heartless rooting out of assumptions, hidden or otherwise, that may be driving policy.
Those who are or will be calling for U.S. military action to damage and delay Iran's ability to develop operational nuclear weapons -- that is those for whom it is now 1938 -- make a number of assumptions: 1) The Iranian regime intends to develop nuclear weapons; 2) once it has them, being fanatics, they may actually use them against Israel, as they have repeatedly threatened; 3) even if they doesn't use them, it will change the dynamics of the Middle East by inducing a nuclear arms race between Sunni Muslim countries and Iran, and by giving Iran a huge capacity to intimidate and dominate the region; 4) both Europe and the United States will eventually fall within the missile shadow of a nuclear Iran -- thus giving Iran capacity to be a world player and possible precipitator of nuclear war even beyond the Middle East; 5) the regime is inherently hostile and aggressive, particularly against the U.S. and Israel, and will keep pushing until pushed back; and 6) even tough sanctions will not deter Iran -- moreover, Russia is too invested in Iran to truly cooperate with us, and even Europe will not enforce tough sanctions.
The 1938'ers further believe -- or claim to believe -- that while Iran can create havoc in response to our military action (threaten oil transport out of the Gulf, terrorist attacks in the Middle East, Europe and probably the United States, further harm to our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan), they would be even more dangerous -- and just as ill intentioned -- if nuclear armed. And they make the factual assumption that the threat will emerge sooner rather than later. John Bolton warned last week that we have only days.
The Obama administration, on the other hand, holds vastly different assumptions: 1) Iran may actually not want nuclear weapons. 2) If they do want them, Russia will help us stop them. 3) If we settle the Israeli/Palestinian dispute that will reduce any nuclear aspirations Iran may have. 4) If we were to attack Iran, Iran could create more chaos than we can manage. 5) But if Iran did develop their nuclear weapons, we can deter their use by providing a nuclear umbrella for both Arab and Israeli.
And, factually, they assume the danger is off by at least a year -- and that Iran is running into technical problems. Of course, predicting when Iran reaches its nuclear threshold is usually driven by policy goals. The CIA in 2007 -- which did not want war -- actually concluded that Iran had given up its objectives. Now they technically claim we have a year.
Back in 1938, British Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain could have gone down in history as the greatest diplomat of the 20th century -- IF he had been right that Herr Hitler had limited ambitions that could be appeased. There is nothing wrong with appeasement if the aggressor can be appeased at acceptable costs. But as we know, Hitler could not be appeased -- he had to be defeated.
So the question today is not whether to appease Iran or not -- but whether Iran is appeasable. And if not appeasable, whether its threat can be defeated with acceptable costs. Those are factual questions -- although all the facts cannot be known before the event.
For me, having observed the Iranian regime, as we all have, I find the Obama administration's factual assumptions to be mostly wishful thinking, at best. Although, the almost certainty of Iran's terrorist response to a military attack by the United States is a factor to sober the mind and hesitate the hand. Nonetheless, the grim assessment of the 1938'ers seems sadly more realistic.
First published in HuffingtonPost.com.
AUTHOR
Tony Blankley is a syndicated columnist in the United States.
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dariush
by Niloufar Parsi on Sun Aug 29, 2010 11:10 AM PDTi think jgarbuz is saying that the palestinianas are using procreation as a weapon, and this is why death must be brought onto them by the israelis. he is clarifying the objectives. procreation versus death. palestinian mothers versus nazis.
Peace
jgarbuz
by Dariush A on Sun Aug 29, 2010 10:56 AM PDTHere is the latest news on you.
//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100829/ts_nm/us_palestinians_israel_rabbi
jgarbuz
by Dariush A on Sun Aug 29, 2010 11:03 AM PDTYou wrote: There is an old saying: "Liars may figure, but figures don't lie."
OK, Liar. Let us add up your numbers.
Then you wrote: The fact is, that before 1939 there were about 16-18 million Jews in the world according to all reliable statistics, while today there are only 13.5 million.
So, you subtracted the false claim of 6 million killed in 1938 from 18 million population then to get the rough estimate of 13.5 million, the current population? Are you saying in the last 70 years Jewish population has not increased at all? These statistics must be from your Zionist country trying falsify the Jewish population to gain sympathy and down play the threats they are to the world. After-all how can such a small minority be a threat. The threat are the Arabs who have multiplied ten folds according to your statistic, right? Even though most young Arabs are killed and arrested and place in jail for decades by Israel to minimize the reproduction, while the Jews have been free and producing like maggots.
Your numbers don't add up. So, that makes you a liar.
Then you wrote Israel helped Iran during the war. How did they? Do you mean by selling the arms for ten times the cost? So did, US and others when they realized the huge profits. Did any of them tried to stop Saddam? Or they also sold to Saddam for more huge profits. Israel wasn't helping Iran. They were milking Iran and getting Iranians and Arabs to kill each other. Hitting two birds with one stone.
You should stop whining and lying and face the truth, you garbuz!!!
Answering insanity
by jgarbuz on Sun Aug 29, 2010 08:27 AM PDTHow many Iranians died in the war with Iraq? Who helped Iran? Israel.
You cannot pervert the history of the Holocaust with me, because I know how many family members I lost. The fact is, that before 1939 there were about 16-18 million Jews in the world according to all reliable statistics, while today there are only 13.5 million. Some 3 to 5 million fewer than 70 years ago. By contrast, the number of "Palestinians" has gone from 1 million in 1930 to roughly 12 million today, more than a 1000% increase. There is an old saying: "Liars may figure, but figures don't lie." Twelve times as many "Palestinians" today as 70 years ago.
By contrast, how many of the nearly 1 million Jews who used to live in the Muslim countries still live there? Since 1948, some 856,000 Jews had to leave or flee the Muslim countries, and there are only maybe 40,000 Jews left in the entire Muslim world, counting Iran. In other words, a 95% ethnic cleansing of Jews from of the Muslim lands. Today there are 5 times as many "Palestinians" living in Israel, West Bank and Gaza than there were in 1948! The population of Gaza has DOUBLED since 1990! If there were starvation in Gaza, who would bring 10 children into the world to starve?
You can fool all of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all the time. If people bothered to learn the FACTS and figures, they would see the truth behind the lies being propagated.
jgarbuz
by Dariush A on Sun Aug 29, 2010 08:17 AM PDTActually the Jews controlled other European countries economy as well, but Germans couldn't take it any more.
Did you said, Half a million Jews out of 65 million Germans couldn't have controlled the economy?
First, you have a great example today in US and Europe. A minority of Jews are controlling the economy, government and media.
Second, You just wrote 500,000 Jews against 65,000,000 Germans, that tells me the 6,000,000 dead claim by the Jews must be an exaggeration. Perhaps, that is why they don't want it to be debated. From half a million Jews some escaped to IRAN, I say it again IRAN and other countries and it was the same with Poland, Austria and etc. So based on you numbers, maybe a total of half a million Jews were killed in the whole Europe VS tens of millions Christians and others. From whom the Jews have been paid trillions since then, while others haven't got nothing and see who is still whining! Now, add to that the genocides and crimes being committed by them(Zionists/Jews), then you have a nation of Past Fetrats.
Jgarbuz, Iran doesn't need AB to take care of Israel. However, they already have that too. They are waiting for you to ask for them.
So, my famil;y in Poland was murdered because Jews
by jgarbuz on Sun Aug 29, 2010 06:48 AM PDTcontrolled the economy of Germany? Gee, if half a million Jews out of 65 million Germans could control Germany's economy, then I am surprised that the Iranian economy too is not controlled by its 24,000 or so Jews. But these kind of neo-Nazi views used by those who support the Islamofascists in the Middle East hardly surprise me. The nexus between Islamists and the Nazis goes back to the 1930s. It's no coincidence that the Baathist regimes of Saddam and Assad were unabashedly modelled after their totalitarian heroes, Stalin and Hitler.
Be it as it may, those who who are propagating the ridiculous notion that Iran is only interested in peaceful uses of nuclear energy are much like those who believed Prime Minister Chamberlain 1938 post-Munich claim (after selling the democratic Czechs down the river), that "Hitler is a man we can do business with." For that, Britain had to fight all alone for over two years, until the US was finally attacked by Htler's ally, Japan, at the eend of 1941. Appeasement of totalitarian madmen has never worked out in the end, and never will. Sooner or later, they will come to bite with sharper teeth and claws than before. If Iran is not stopped, the consequences are too dire be imagined, and will be painfully regretted by the survivors, if any.
very well comments
by Dariush A on Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:28 PM PDTIt is good to see that you are not getting exhausted to answer again and again to these past fetrats.
Abarmard, You wrote,
His kinds will not stop until United States is in the same secure position as Israel today, and that is not beneficial for the United States.
Dis you mean, "until United States is in the same insecure position as Israel today"?
I have a simple question for the Blogger,
Why would Iran spend billions to build nuclear power plants to build a few AB? They could and can just buy them tested and ready to use for the fraction of the cost of building power plants.
The only logical answer to me is that the plants are indeed to produce electricity and that is why they are built in different areas to supply those areas with cheaper electricity and less pollution. Then the oil can be exported for more profit and less dependency on oil for energy.
The only real comparison I see to 1938, is how the Jews were in control of the economy and were suffocating the public. That was the cause for Hitler's rise and Germans support. Otherwise, Hitler wouldn't be able to gain the support of millions of Germans. But what this Zionist blogger is propagating, reminds me of the 2001 invasion of Iraq and similar wars with his neighbors Lebanon and Palestine and many more in the past.
Tony Zionist, you might fool a few fools here and there, but the majority around the world know you and your kinds. Even some Jews.
Aid to Israe is a pittance
by jgarbuz on Sat Aug 28, 2010 10:24 PM PDTWhen compared to the $300-$400 billion the US alone sends to OPEC countries for the petroleum it discovered, developed and addicted itself to over the last century. Indeed, like the addict and his drug dealer, the addict gets weaker and increasingly falls prey to the dope pusher as time goes by. Withut this massive transfer of wealth from the West to the Arab world and Iran, there would be no threat today at all. Not against Israel nor the West. Those who belabor all this "aid" that supposedly props up Israel, should consider the massive amount wealth and arms that America and the West has showered on those who have no love for either. Just last week, the US sold Saudi Arabia some $60 billion worth of arms, mostly F-15s that can fly in either direction, towards Iran or towards Israel. On top of that, Egypt and the Palestinians alone receive as much aid as does Israel. That fact is simply not conveyed by the media very effectively, for some odd reason.
the boys who cried "Hitler"
by Q on Sat Aug 28, 2010 12:58 PM PDTThere's been a lot of "1938" years in the past. This is nothing new, standard Zionist line to make sure the $Billions in US tax payer money continues to get delivered to Israel and its agents.
//www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&...
The analogy to the Nazi regime of the 1930s is most apt.
by jgarbuz on Sat Aug 28, 2010 09:50 AM PDTI'll try to be concise. First of all, the Persian peope are among the greatest people on earth, and an ancient friend of the Jews in pre-Islamic times. So nothing I will say is against the Iranian people, a wonderful, friendly, brilliant and decent people. But then, the German people are a great people as well. As are the Russians. What we are talking about is the nature of regimes that at times make effective use of the machinery of democracy to ascend to power, only to throw a monkey wrench into it. So what is the barometer of whether a regime is actually benevolent or malevolent in its intent?
One major indicator is how it deals with its OWN people, and political opposition. We know how Hitler came to power, and how he justified his taking the reins of power, and how he dealt with internal opponents of his regime. In the last election, this regime in Teheran umasked itself, in doing what it did to its very own people who dared question the results of that election.
On the diplomatic front, one of the first things that Hitler did was to repudiate and essentially tear up the Versailles treaty, and begin German rearmament. he claimed that it was "unfair" to Germany. While Iran has not formally repudiated the NPT, it has clearly been deceptive and not totally transparent as the treaty requires, while casting aspersions on Israel - a nonsignatory of the NPT, along with India and Pakistan - to try to throw the world community off its tracks. At the same time it has been engaged in an unprecedented armament program over the last few years, digging thousands of deep tunnels and bunkers into Iranian mountainsides, all while proclaiming that the "zionist entity" must disappear from the "pages of history." But he has not confined his comments to proclaiming the imminent end of ISrael, but has also confidently prophesied the end of the West as well.In some ways, Ahmadinejad and Khameini have been more transparent in what they intend for Israel and America than Hitler was in his pronouncements against the Jews. And they have backed it up with their arming Hezbollah and Hamas, as well having a hand in the killing of many American troops in Iraq and possibly Afghanistan as well. The analogy to the Spanish Civl War where Hitler tested many of his new weapons is not too far fetched.
Can such a regime, with such a bent of mind be appeased? I am convinced that it cannot. And less so with every passing day, as Iran moves relentlessly in building up its long range missile capabilities, and digs its nuclear programs deeper into its mountain sides and out of sight. The League of Nations, which created the Jewish National Home in Palestine for the Jewish people, could not stop Mussolini, Hitler nor Japan with its sanctions, nor will the UN or the US stop the Iranian program with its sanctions. Barring fortuitous unforseen events, I do believe conflict is inevitable, and the only question will be the cost of such confrontation sooner versus later. It's already quite late, but delaying another year or two may make it too late. Imagine Hitler with a few atomic bombs in 1941 while sitting on top of the world's greatest energy reserves! That is the reality that I think Israel and the West are facing. To do, or not to do, that is the question. To oppose the slings and arrows, and make an end to them, or to face an armeageddon later if we don't act in time.
this guy
by Niloufar Parsi on Sat Aug 28, 2010 02:26 AM PDTis a total idiot. nuff said!
Godwin's law of Nazi Analogies
by asadabad on Fri Aug 27, 2010 09:43 PM PDTor also known as Reductio ad Hitlerum. It is humorous but sadly true!
I agree with SP what a utter garbage
by عموجان on Fri Aug 27, 2010 07:50 PM PDTIRI men even can't shave their face let alone they want to start a war.
I find myself in agreement with yousef here
by Bavafa on Fri Aug 27, 2010 11:33 AM PDTThe utter nonsense, comparing Iran with Nazi Germany but hey, how else create that fear in people and set the stage for yet another war. Remember Saddam, his army had WMD that could destroy EU in 45 minutes. Now Iran, just like Germany in 1938 can pick on the world single handedly.
Mehrdad
Both Evil and dangerous ideologies, yet Wrong analogy.
by yousef on Fri Aug 27, 2010 08:51 AM PDTBetween the backward islamist system of Iran, and highly industrialised and technologically advanced Nazi Germany.
Nazi Germany had some of the best physicists and engineering talents and capabilities of the time. They pioneered key military fields of Rocket and nuclear fusion technologies. Islamist Iran on the other hand can not even refine oil for it's own consumption. can not build basic components for it's aging military and civilian air fleet. Every piece of "technology" has to be imported (or smuggled) into the country. Take the oil money away and Islamist Iran would look like the poor cousine of somalia.
What utter garbage. Did
by Sargord Pirouz on Fri Aug 27, 2010 08:34 AM PDTWhat utter garbage. Did Blankley ever attend college? He has the aptitude of a sophomore high school student.
Who posted this rubbish in the articles section, anyway? Don't these postings by IC admins get fact checked before uploading? Sure doesn't look like it.
There's enough anti-Iran BS these days throughout the MSM. Why spread it farther?
Defining US strategy
by Abarmard on Fri Aug 27, 2010 08:33 AM PDTAccording to this Article, Iran will develop a bomb (emphasis is "A" bomb) while under the inspection of IAEA and active member of NPT. However, since this guy doesn't care for international laws and regulations, he believes that those legal entities are useless. They lie but his pro Israeli (emphasis is "Pro Israeli" rather than Pro America) is all knowing.
People like him believe the legal entity called Fox news. Of course he would assume the worse, and want to use militaryforce to kill any "possible enemy" in the womb. A concept popular in Israeli way of thinking. The author needs to re-strategize his thinking. It is not Iran that is winning but that the US is failing.
There are these kinds of policies that have made US a less important country in that region and around the globe. Logically, one can make an argument that if pro Israeli US policies are failing and making US weaker as the result, perhaps Israel is not such a good friend after all.
Let's take a closer look at Israel. They have influenced US policies by writing such articles as above. If you recall they did the same about Iraq and Saddam Hussaing, to convince the US public that Iraq was a terrorist country and equate them to Al-Qaidah. Assume that US was not influenced with Israeli misinformation and propaganda. They would instead focus on Iran and today we would have had much lesser headache to deal with Iran. Based on these guys own logic.
Today the issue must be objectives. US needs to define its own objective to benefit US position rather than Israel's. Along the way, we need to figure out what is the objective of Iranian system. It is pure stupidity and politically ignorant to think that Iranian system's objective is based on Israel. Israel might play a role (Today) for the Iranians, but certainly that is not their objective. They want a powerful and strong leadership role in the region. Does military take that objective away? Delay it? Then what?
Also US has to consider if increased pro Israeli wars and uncertainty, that is the original cause of terrorism and fanaticism is beneficial for the US and its true allies in the long run.
Perhaps then we notice it is more beneficial to "drop" Israel and treat them as a country rather than a trouble maker juvenile under our "no question asked" policies.
Let the author and his type suffer for their criminal ideologies that they promote, which has resulted and will continue to create homeless, wounded, killed, and angered populations around the globe. His kinds will not stop until United States is in the same secure position as Israel today, and that is not beneficial for the United States.
If nothing else, think about this idea: Which country in the region has shown lack of diplomacy, lack of support of International laws and regulations, promote the concept of force and muscle Vs. talks and negotiations, cannot live a natural life as a country or society if millions of capital along with billions of killing tools not injected in to that system? If you answered Iran, then you need to learn more about the region. If you answered Israel, then perhaps to equate Iranian system with Hitler is misplaced!